Month: November 2025

New Delhi has finally granted the highest level of legal protection to a massive portion of the Southern Ridge, the city’s largest "green lung," 31 years after the initial step to conserve the land was taken. The final gazette notification, issued on October 24 and published on Monday, officially declares 4,080 hectares, or nearly two-thirds of the total Southern Ridge area, as a "reserve forest" under Section 20 of the Indian Forest Act,1927. The notification, which received approval from Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and the Lieutenant Governor, is considered the most significant legal protection afforded to the Ridge in decades. It now grants the Forest and Wildlife Department full authority to act against encroachments since the boundaries have been conclusively demarcated and al...

A new international study published in the journal PLOS One reveals that land-use change caused by rapid population growth, not climate change, was the primary direct cause of the loss of 76 per cent of natural plant species on the lower slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro between 1911 and 2022. The findings, which mark one of the most detailed long-term ecological studies in the region, highlight a severe and accelerating threat to the biodiversity of Africa’s tallest free-standing mountain, located in Tanzania. The Role of Population and Land Use Researchers analyzed historical maps, census data, satellite imagery, and a high-resolution dataset of nearly 3,000 plant species over the 111-year period. The analysis conclusively showed that the expansion of urban areas and the conversion of...

New Delhi - An overwhelming majority of Indians believe that global warming is driving the country’s increasingly frequent severe weather events, according to a detailed new report published by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. The study, released on November 19, 2025, underscores a high level of public awareness and risk perception regarding the climate crisis across the nation. The research used advanced modeling techniques to create detailed climate opinion maps, revealing that large majorities of the population attribute major weather phenomena to climate change: • Severe Heat Waves 78% of Indians believe global warming is affecting these events. • Droughts and Water Shortages 77% link these to global warming. • Severe Cyclones 73% see a link with global war...

Washington D.C. - Antarctic sea ice reached one of its lowest winter maximums on record this year, sparking alarm among climate scientists who are grappling with unprecedented volatility in the remote Southern Ocean. Data released by NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) revealed that the maximum winter extent, typically a natural buffer for global ocean systems, remained significantly below the long-term average. On September 17, the sea ice reached a maximum of 6.88 million square miles, ranking as the third-lowest peak in the 47-year satellite record. This figure represents a deficit of about 348,000 square miles compared to the 1981–2010 average. A System Entering a New State The notable shortfall has researchers on alert because the frozen edge of the Antarct...

New Delhi - The political friction over Delhi's persistent air pollution escalated on Tuesday as Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann categorically denied that smoke from Punjab's farm fires was contributing to the toxic haze over the national capital. Speaking at a press conference in New Delhi, CM Mann dismissed the claims, stating, "...The smoke from Punjab doesn't even reach Delhi." He argued that for the smoke to travel the required distance in 10 days, a sustained north-to-south wind speed of 30 kmph would be necessary, a condition he asserted "never happens." The CM's statement was a direct counter to the Delhi administration, following an attack by Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on the Punjab government over stubble burning during the Northern Zonal Council meeting on Novemb...

New Delhi - India’s ecological protection efforts are under intense scrutiny following a directive from the Supreme Court on Monday and a sobering new international report on the state of the country's biodiversity hotspots. In a move aimed at reversing large-scale ecological violations, the Supreme Court ruled that tiger safaris must be established only on “non-forest land or degraded forest land in buffer areas provided they are not part of a tiger corridor.” This directive is expected to halt the commercial exploitation of core tiger habitats, such as those recently seen in the Jim Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand. Global Body Raises Alarm on Western Ghats Simultaneously, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) raised serious concerns over some of India's...

Gurugram - Gurugram claim of processing a remarkable 98 percent of its daily waste has been exposed as a "statistical illusion," according to on-the-ground investigations that reveal a system in complete disarray despite an annual expenditure of ₹45 crore. The city, which generates approximately 1,200 tonnes of waste every day, manages little more than relocating garbage until it becomes a hazard for the Aravalli forests and nearby communities, experts warn. The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram’s (MCG) boast of a leap from 140th to 41st in the 2024–25 Swachh Survekshan rankings is directly contradicted by official figures showing a collapse in fundamental sanitation metrics. The rate of door-to-door collection dropped from 98 percent to 59 percent over three years, while source seg...

New Delhi - An alarming new international study published in The Lancet’s eClinicalMedicine has sounded a loud warning over soaring antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in India, placing the country at the center of what experts describe as a rapidly escalating superbug crisis. The research found that an overwhelming majority of Indian patients carried multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) or superbugs a prevalence rate that is the highest globally. The study titled 'Preprocedural screening for multidrug-resistant organisms in endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography...', screened over 1,200 patients across four countries India, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States to assess MDRO carriage before a common endoscopic procedure. Alarmingly High Resistance Levels The findings...

New Delhi - The Union Ministry of Power, Government of India, has released a comprehensive new policy mandating coal-based thermal power plants (TPPs) to co-fire torrefied charcoal derived from municipal solid waste (MSW) alongside traditional coal and biomass pellets. Released on November 7, 2025, the consolidated policy supersedes all earlier versions, creating a unified framework aimed at utilizing the country’s vast amounts of surplus agricultural residue and unmanaged urban waste. The primary objective is to sustainably utilize India’s estimated 230 million tonnes of surplus agricultural residue and the 25% of the 150,000 tonnes of daily MSW that currently remains unmanaged. This move aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support the government’s Swachh Bharat Mission (Clean ...